Do you secretly feel like you aren't good enough like you don't deserve to be successful at work?
Maybe you want to have a life outside of work and feel guilty when you're not working. You feel like you need to do more, and because you could be doing more, you tell yourself:
"If I could just do more or learn more or get that credential or degree, then I'll be good enough."
Maybe you've got kids and are constantly comparing your "now" to your "past" when you worked a lot of overtime or stayed late whenever needed to get something done. While you recognize now that you may have had some unhealthy work habits in the past, you also beat yourself up, idealizing the time before you had kids as a time when you were more committed to work.
Or maybe you're falling prey to the dark side of awareness about what it means to be a woman or non-binary individual in engineering, tech, and construction. Statistics like:
13% of engineers and 26% of computer scientists are women
40% of women who graduate with engineering degrees drop out or never enter the field
1 in 4 women engineers (as compared to 1 in 10 men) drop out after age 30
LGBTQ people are 17-21% less represented in STEM than expected
The percentage of women graduating with computer science and engineering degrees has been declining since the 1990s
Tech women hold just 11% of executive-level positions at Silicon Valley companies
No matter the reason, you secretly feel like you aren't good enough, that you need to work harder to be worthy of success.
I believe that you are worthy of success, just as you are. But it doesn't matter what I think. It only matters what YOU see.
The origins of these feelings of unworthiness are grounded in history. They are so entrenched within society that we often don't recognize the root cause. Instead, many believe there is something wrong with them causing these feelings.
My hope today is by digging into that origin story, you will be empowered to challenge these beliefs in yourself and others when you encounter them so that you can show up as the leader you are at work, no matter where you are in your career right now.
Not feeling good enough can start with your past
Let's start with your personal story. Consider both your school and work experiences. As a child, were you rewarded for achievements? For me, there were rewards for getting my homework done, finishing a project, and getting an A on a test. At school, those achievements meant I felt accepted by peers. At home, those achievements meant that I had my parent's approval.
In our work environments, achievement is everything – and even a competition - in many organizations.
Deliverables and deadlines must be met within budgetary constraints. Additionally, many of our relationships at work are purely transactional with little personal connection. It's no wonder that we start to believe that if we are not constantly achieving the next thing, we are not doing enough at work.
We start to become "achievement motivated." We attach our worth as a human to achievement. We tie our value as a human to our current job.
Some of the most common ways this can manifest:
You KNOW your current role is not the best fit for you, but you don't consider other options because they could result in a pay cut.
You've been laid off, and even though you are financially OK for now, as the weeks pass and you don't immediately find a new job, you struggle to find meaning in your life.
You are already working 40 hours+ per week, but you feel you need to work more to get ahead. Then you do work more, but it never feels like you are doing enough.
You struggle tremendously with downtime. It is really, really, hard for you to STOP doing things, even when you're not at work (and you have not been diagnosed with ADHD or similar).
You find yourself comparing what you've achieved to what others achieve and find yourself lacking.
You believe that for you to achieve something, others must "lose."
Ambition is not inherently bad. But you've crossed the line from healthy purpose to anxiety-producing ambition if you cannot disconnect your identity and worth as a human being from your work. Do you know who you are outside of your identity as a STEM professional?
Not feeling good enough has a historical context
"Imposter Syndrome" was introduced in 1978 by psychotherapists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They found women with notable achievements struggled with self-doubt:
"Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persists in believing that they are not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise."
Clance and Imes note that work environment combined with "achievement motivation" results in imposter syndrome, and they noticed this was particularly prevalent for women in male-dominated fields like STEM.
But where does THAT originate?
To answer this question, we need to go back a little further to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the origin of the "ideal worker" myth. During that time, it was often the case that men would go to factories while the women would mind the home. This trend continued until large numbers of women entered the workforce in the late 1900s.
To be an ideal worker, you prioritize work over all else. Ideal workers work continuously from the time they're able to get a job until retirement. They don't take leaves of absences, sabbaticals, or significant time off. They take vacation and days off as little as humanly possible, and even then, it's planned well in advance.
It's the person who clocks long hours, answers every work email or call no matter the time of day, travels for work at the drop of a hat, and professes not only dedication but the love of the job. They don't have other responsibilities for caretaking or even a desire to have a life outside of work. In essence, they are the human equivalent of a work robot.
In the United States, now let's combine that with the idea of rugged individualism. Many Americans genuinely believe if you work hard, you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps. There is a belief that if you're not where you want to be, it's because you're not working hard enough. It’s a double-whammy of “productivity above all else.”
(Of note: I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that the ideal worker myth as we know it today is very much grounded in upper-class white privilege. Women and children, especially racial minorities, worked in the factories from the beginning of the industrial revolution, and in many cases, suffered tremendous abuses until unions became more prevalent. Similarly, historically working hard – and the opportunities that can open when you do so - hasn't gotten you nearly as far if you aren't white. In all cases, the idea that if you're not where you want to be, you're not working hard enough or are lazy is a prevalent unspoken belief that impacts everything from political policies to corporate management decisions.)
These stereotypes are so ingrained within society that they are glorified. You see them in the #hustle culture. They tell you: work harder and do more. You believe you can solve any problem by working more.
I'll bet you may have even contributed to this myth today. If you've been asked, "How are you doing?" and your response is "busy," consider WHY you say that.
Do you truly believe that "busy" and the number of hours you work is a badge of honor?
The ideal worker and pull-it-up by your bootstraps mentalities tell us that fundamentally if you are not constantly achieving, if you are not continually producing, you are not worthy of success.
This belief is objectively false. Research shows it's work intensity, not work hours, that contributes to success. (Work intensity is defined as the level of effort supplied per unit of working time.)
For example, Daniel Cook's research on productivity shows that working more than sixty hours a week for four weeks in a row results in lower output when it continues beyond four weeks. That means that even if you go back to a "normal" forty hours after four weeks of working sixty hours, your work output is less than someone else working forty-hour weeks who was not previously working sixty hours.
On his blog, Daniel Cook writes:
"In a 60-hour crunch people have a vague sense that they are doing worse, but never think that they should stop crunching. They imagine that working 40 hours a week will decrease their productivity. In fact, it will let them rest and increase their productivity.
This behavior is fascinating to observe. Zombies stumble over to their desk every morning. Tempers flare. … Yet to turn back would be a betrayal."
Even more concerning, Cook found that people putting in continuous sixty-hour weeks actually thought they were achieving more than those working forty-hour weeks, when in fact they were less productive. You can see the dangerous precedent this can set: if your manager believes they are more productive than everyone else in the office by working more hours, they will very likely expect you to do the same, even though the science proves them wrong.
Challenging the Ideal-Worker Myth
It is not true that simply working harder will result in success. Many people are working multiple jobs and are barely scraping by, including the under-employed college-educated. They are working hard but not getting ahead.
Hard work IS essential to success. I don't want anyone reading this blog to think that it isn't important at all. But what I've found to be an almost universal truth with the high achieving technical professionals I coach is an underlying belief that if you don't live up to the ideal worker myth, there is something wrong with you.
If you've consciously or subconsciously bought into the myth, you will NEVER believe you're good enough because there is always more work you could do than there are hours in the day.
What are your beliefs? Deep down:
Are you buying into the ideal worker myth?
Do you believe you don't have worth in the world without your job?
Are you using how much you achieve to define your worth as a human being?
Do you beat yourself up if you're not constantly checking something off your to-do list?
Do you know who you are if you aren't an engineer, scientist, woman in construction, tech, or a STEM professional?
You've now got some awareness of why this happens. Next, let's talk about how to shift those false beliefs.
How to Stop Feeling Unworthy at Work: A Reflection Exercise
One of the most challenging things about feelings of unworthiness I've noticed is that sometimes you may believe this isn't a struggle for you, yet your daily actions say otherwise. A few examples:
Saying yes to every request at work (no matter how last minute or if you can fit it in)
Avoiding raising your hand for stretch projects and stretch roles
Not asking for a long-overdue raise
Not speaking up
What if you instead showed up at work knowing you are valuable to your organization and that your continued business relationship – the fact that you stay employed there - is your choice and not your prison.
Struggling with not feeling good enough at work is extremely common for technical professionals. We've created a one-page exercise you can do alone in about 30 minutes to help you explore your own beliefs here, but more importantly, start to overcome them so you can unleash your inner leader with less stress.
Click on the image below and enter your information to download your copy.
Finally, I want to talk directly to managers. If you have not explored what you believe about the myth of the ideal worker, I encourage you to do so. Whether you are aware of it or not, underlying beliefs around this topic often dictate the level of empathy you demonstrate towards those you are managing. Empathy is both a marker of the emotional intelligence needed to be successful in your role and is the top leadership trait according to this study in Forbes.
I believe that you are worthy of success, just as you are. Do you?
